Like all good bedtime stories
by h0rcruxxx
Summary: Althea Mirna is starting her 7th year at Hogwarts. OC x Snape ; with supporting characters Draco and Kagschann's Cilwenu. If you don't like OC x canon this isn't for you! C:
1. Introduction

"Once upon a time there was a magical princess! She lived in a far off magical kingdom in a castle on hill. She was the most beautiful princess in the whole world and everyone loved her!" The blonde girl shifted the small boy on her lap and gave him a gentle pat on the head.

"Sissssy! That's girls stuff," the little boy spat making a disgusted face and wrinkling up his tiny nose. "I wanna hear a story about a evil monster."

"Well, Thomas, if you would let me finish...I was about to get to that part, now no more interruptions!" Althea cleared her throat and shifted her little brother once more as he wrapped his arms around her neck to listen intently to the rest of the bedtime story.

"Anyway, this princess lived in a beautiful castle but she had no friends at all."

"I thought you said everyone loved her?"

Althea shot a look to Thomas but decided to ignore his comment and carried on, "but she was under the rule of an evil prince." The girl looked down to the boy would was now completely sucked into his sister's tale. "The prince was bitter and angry with the world and locked the princess away every night forcing her to do the castle choirs like a house elf. Night after night the princess would scrub cauldrons and polish bottles-"

"Why didn't she run away during the day? I mean, didn't you say he only locked her up at night? She could have told someone, she could have got away," Thomas unlocked his arms from around the neck he was embracing and looked up at Althea with very real concern for the fictional princess. His sister just smiled and planted a kiss on his forehead.

"You're right, she had plenty of chances to escape...but she knew that in there somewhere there was good in the prince and she wanted to find that. Well, that's enough for now...it's much past your bedtime." She stood taking Thomas in her arms and then plopping him gently in bed.

"But," he said in protest, "what happens? What happens to the prince and princess?"

Althea tucked Thomas in and clicked off his bedside light. "He transforms into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after like every good fairytale should end." She smiled and cracked his door before telling him goodnight and before she even made it down the hall she heard his light snores.

Thomas was very precious to her...unlike most of her friends, her brother wouldn't be joining her at Hogwarts the next day or ever for that matter. It made her a bit sad that there would never be a time when she would watch him get sorted into his house or see him play on a quidditch team. Unlike her, he was a squib. He didn't inherit their father's magical abilities like she had. It didn't seem to bother him to much...yet.

The blonde headed girl lay in bed. Tomorrow she would return to Hogwarts for her seventh and last year. Also, the bedtime story she had told her brother kept repeating itself in her head. Granted, it wasn't much of a story, but it held some truth in her real life situation. She was by no means a beautiful princess and she wasn't exactly being held captive by an evil prince. It was more like her fluffy interpretation of what she was going to return to when she got back to Hogwarts- potions detention.

A certain cauldron explosion had landed her two months detention the last days of school. Considering school ended before her sentence was up she was to spend her first evening back in Severus Snape's classroom doing exactly what her imprisoned princess was doing. Althea's consciousness drifted in and out until finally she was in a deep sleep like the rest of her family.

The train ride to Hogwarts was a long one and Althea wasn't one for being in vehicles for long periods of time. After an hour she was already slumped over in her seat trying to dose off. It was a little hard considering the only cart she had caught was one next to a bunch of over-excited first years. Not to mention, inconveniently close to Cilwenu Snape. The whole ride so far had been a serious of awkward eye contact between her and the brunette.

It wasn't that she disliked Cilwenu at all. She happened to be her best friend. There were just certain obstacles that made speaking in public hard...such as her arrogant and snotty boyfriend, Draco Malfoy who was fastened neatly to her side. Althea caught herself staring, lost in thought, at the couple. The platinum blonde boy sneered at her and looked away in disgust muttering something that she was very thankful she couldn't hear.

"Pff, sneaky Slytherins. You better hope you don't get put in to Slytherin...it does something to your brain...Makes you a bloody prick." Althea said to a first year girl would looked absolutely petrified at the statement.

"My whole family was- was in h-hufflepuff," she girl retorted and shuffled her books in her hands. The older witch stayed silent, she felt a little bad for probably scaring the girl out of her wits, but decided that fretting about it wasn't going to solve anything...maybe now she would stay quiet for the rest of the ride.

"Althea!" The voice belonged to none other than the young Snape girl. She pushed through groups of younger students until she finally reached her Gryffindor friend. "Hey, wait up," she finally said as she placed a hand on Althea's shoulder.

"Where's Draco?" Althea snorted, but her harsh glare softened immediately. It had been all summer since she had seen her and she really couldn't deny that she had missed Cilwenu a lot. Quickly changing the subject she stepped aside to let some third years pass, "How has your summer been? Hopefully spending quality time with your father," she teased.

Cilwenu and her father, Severus Snape, didn't exactly see eye to eye. He had strict guidelines concerning her and Cilwenu was always more of a free spirit. Althea had never met Cilwenu's mother but she was willing to bet that Wenny had taken up more of her personality traits than her father.

"Ohhhh, please! The only person that wants to spend quality time with him is you!" She let out a small laugh and gave her friend a light nudge on the shoulder.

"You just don't want me to be your new mum! You know I'll forbid you to date that filthy Malfoy weasel!"

"Althea, I am forbiddon to hang out with you...and you see how well that is working out. Draco isn't filthy either." Althea decided not to point out to Cilwenu that she didn't deny him being a weasel but instead gave a mischievous smile that her friend mirrored. "Speaking of him, I should probably find him before he throws a tantrum."

With that the dark haired girl vanished in a crowd of black robes and Althea was left to fend for herself.

The ceremonial sorting of the first years went as every year did. Althea was pleased to see the poor girl on the train ride that had to endure her mood get sorted into Hufflepuff. She made sure to clap extra loud for that one.


	2. A place to think

Classes went by like normal, which was the good thing. Althea never really realized how much she missed Hogwarts until she was sitting back in class with quill in hand. After that most of her fellow Gryffindor students spent the afternoon socializing with each other and catching up on all that had happened while they were out. Althea had potions detention, not the completely ideal way to pass away the afternoon.

The Gryffindor girl made her way to the potions classroom and knocked on the door politely before pushing it open. Sitting in the professor's chair was the black haired man that had granted her this cruel fate of scrubbing cauldrons. "Good evening," Althea stated flatly trying not to hold to much distaste on her tongue. There was a time when her heart would have fluttered clear out of her chest by being in the same room as him…but not so much anymore. It was just a silly childhood crush, that was all and very well done with.

"Yes," his tone was just as stale as hers and for a moment they stood there looking at each other before Snape nodded and once again directed his attention to the pile of parchment beneath his hooked nose. The blonde female shut her eyes to conceal a very obvious eye-roll and went to the cabinet to fetch a various pallet of muggle cleaning supplies. To most witches and wizards this would have been torture but growing up with a muggle mother she was quiet used to it. Magic was very restricted in their house. Althea was now able to use magic outside of the walls of Hogwarts but they were careful to use it in front of Thomas for fear of making him feel less special.

After an hour of scrubbing at a particularly grimy cauldron Althea was getting very fed up. Her slate blue eyes continuously darted up to Snape who seemed altogether sucked into his paperwork. This was her last cauldron and after that she was free to do whatever it was that she wanted, within Hogwarts regulations, of course. Growing impatient, she slipped her hand to the waist of her skirt and retracted her wand that was tucked away safely at her side. Althea eyed the desk and spotted a pile of potions books sitting within arms distance of her. With her eyes on Snape she swiftly knocked them off the counter and when the thud of the books landing on the floor echoed she whispered "Scourgify!" and the caldron was wiped clean.

Althea tucked her wand quickly back into her skirt's waistline and stood up in an instant looking very startled. "Sorry, professor!" The Gryffindor bent over and stacked all the potions books in her hands and sat them on the table. "This cauldron is done, if I may leave?"

Snape looked up dully from his papers and studied his student for a brief moment before directing her to leave, "Of course." He waited until Althea was half way out the door before finishing his sentence, "Ms. Mirna, may I have a word with you? My desk, please."

Althea stopped in her tracks and tried to vanish the look of frozen fear on her face. She turned, almost robotically, and staggered to his desk. "Yes, sir?"

Severus had a look of amusement on his face as he looked up at her like he was searching for the right words. The seconds ticked by like hours and a huge lump grew in the back of Althea's throat as she waited a certain scolding from the potion's master.

"How are your grandparents? I haven't seen them in quite some time." The blonde tried not to seem a little taken off guard as she plastered on a huge fake smile and gritted her teeth in the process. Her magical grandparents, John and Janet Mirna, were neighbors to Snape on Spinner's End. The Mirna's were pureblood, for the most part, and all a member of Slytherin House. They loathed her mother for being a muggle and refused to claim Thomas as their grandchild. Althea wasn't totally excepted either, for having dirty blood, but they were forced to tolerate her for the sake of her father (their son) Vincent.

"They are fine." It was all Althea could muster. She hated them and Snape knew this and right about now she was hating him for bringing it up.

"How do you expect….that they would react….to you using spells in classroom when you were not permitted? Did you think I wouldn't notice the Scourgify spell? You are awfully brave, Ms. Mirna…but I guess that's the perk of a Gryffindor?" He said her house name with so much distaste that Althea could of sworn that it hurt him to speak it.

"I don't expect that I would care." Althea wasn't normally to outspoken, but he was royally annoying her and sometimes she just spat things out without really thinking it through. Of course, standing there in the silence of the classroom with tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, she wished she knew a spell to take back her words.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor and another week of detention. Good day."

Althea took that chance to leave and not dig her hole any deeper. This time she walked so briskly it would have been impossible for him to stop her at the door. By the time she was in Gryffindor tower she was so furious and exhausted she said her goodnights rather early. Her arm felt like jelly and the smell of lemon cleaner was permanently stuck in her nose for the time being.

Althea bolted up right out of bed with a cold sweat dripping from her temple. She looked around the dorm at her fellow female classmates sleeping soundly in their beds. A thin sliver of moonlight shone in illuminating everyone's sleeping faces. A rather disturbing dream had roused her from her sleep though now it was hard for her to recollect what exactly it was.

Althea rummaged through the dark to find her wand that she always kept at her bedside. Once she felt her fingers wrap around it she immediately felt safe again. "Lumos!" she whispered and the tip of her wand lit up providing much more light than the moon. Lavender Brown rustled in her sleep in the bed next to her and sleepily shielded her eyes.

"Turn that thing off, Mirna and go to bed!" Althea bit her tongue and waved her wand to extinguish the light in an instant. There were a couple things that she would like to say but found it best to keep it to herself at this moment. The dead of night was no time to start an argument with Lavender Brown. Instead, she jumped from her bed and pulled socks over her feet and padded out of the girl's dormitory and into the Gryffindor common room. Empty, like she suspected.

The corridors were silent and empty as well and all the portraits were sleeping soundly like she very well knew she should be. Althea was careful to stop every so often and listen for any footsteps but she had been doing this for so long it didn't really faze her. Luckily, she made it to an old door past Moaning Myrtle's bathroom safely without any sign of Filtch or his damned cat. Still, Althea did a double take around the corridor before creaking open the door and sliding through.

The spiral stone stairway led to a deteriorated tower than had long since been sealed off. Althea had discovered it her first year when she had been homesick in the middle of the night and tried to flee from Hogwarts to go home. Filtch had heard someone in the wing and in a desperate attempt to hide she scampered behind the door. At the top of the stairs there was a small circular platform with columns that held up the roof and open archways that looked out over the grounds of Hogwarts. Althea positioned herself on near the arch that over looked to the forbidden forest and enjoyed the cool night breeze. This was the perfect place for her to think and on nights she had trouble sleeping this was almost always where she turned to.

Althea was feeling a lot better and the confrontation with Snape had almost left her mind. She had once asked Cilwenu if he was always like but she had simply just answered 'yes'. There was a hazy memory she had from when she was younger but it was so long ago when she looked back it almost seemed like a dream.

"_Hey, why are you crying? Did you fall down?" A little girl in a black dress bent down with a look of great concern stared at a little blonde girl who was sitting on the ground with tears welled in her eyes. The blonde girl just looked up and shook her head. "Don't be sad! What's your name?"_

"_Althea…sniff, Mirna….what's your name?" The little girl said between sniffles. _

"_My name is Cilwenu Snape! Do you live around here?"_

_Althea just pointed to a large house and then looked away like it pained her to see it. "They don't like me, because I'm different. So I ran away. I don't need them."_

_Cilwenu now had a curious look on her face as she tilted it causing a cascade of dark hair fall over her shoulders. "I'm different too. Do you know a place called Hogwarts?" The Snape girl knew she was pushing it…but, if Althea knew what it was that meant she was a witch too and if she didn't…well, she could always pretend like it was made up and she would still acquire a new playmate. _

_The blonde's eyes widened and she reached up and snatched Cilwenu's hand. "You're a witch! Only witches know about Hogwarts!" Althea pulled herself up with her small hands still clasped to the other. _

"_Yes, and you are too! That's why they don't like you?" Cilwenu nodded towards the Mirna Manor._

_Althea's eyes suddenly got sad again. "No, it's not that. They are witches too…but my mom is a muggle and they call my bad names. I'm not that different from them at all. It doesn't matter…because I'm running away!" _

"_Cilwenu…what are you doing?" A tall man towered over both the small Cilwenu and Althea. "Come with me." He cast a glance at Althea and then to his daughter with a very skeptical look on his face. _

"_Daddy, this is Althea…she is like us, don't worry." She scuttled over to her father and grabbed ahold of his dark robes._

"_A Mirna, are you?" He arched a brow and Althea couldn't do anything but nod. "You should go home, it's getting late….Cilwenu, let's go." Cilwenu obeyed her father's demands and turned on her heel giving a small wave to her new friend and then Severus did something that Althea could never forget. He smiled at her._

It was also the last time he smiled at her and probably the last time that Cilwenu had obeyed her father. The memory brought a smile to her face. It was the first time she had ever met another wizarding family outside of her own. After she met Cilwenu her days at her grandparent's weren't so bad and it was the first time that things had started to look up for her.


End file.
